Growing Up In Public

"Don't put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington" advised Noel Coward, but many parents and children have ignored that caution and have begun a performing career at an early age.Parents who thought that their progeny were prodigies. The results have been mixed, in recent years we have seen the negative results of a manipulative and megalomaniac parent on the the lives of the Jackson and Wilson children, although The Osmonds seem relatively unscathed, but for some an early start has laid the groundwork for a successful adult career.

Here are a few who've done it.

Father Ozzie Nelson was an entrepreneur and pioneered a sit com/ scripted reality show based on his own family first on radio and then television when son Ricky started a pop career, singing a song each week on the show from 1952 to 1966 garnering him 30 Top Forty singles between 1957 and 1962 before beginning his successful solo career and perishing in a plane crash at the age of 45..

Future Monkees' drummer and music theatre star Mickey Dolenz also got his start on television as star of the Circus Boy series.

He was dubbed Little Stevie Wonder the blind boy genius when the age of 13 he had his first Number One single with Fingertips Part One And Twobefore moving on from his mastery of harmonica to multi-instrumental mastery in his still successful career.

Beginning in the 1950s and continuing into the 90s Disney's weekly TV variety show The Mickey Mouse Club showcased young performers including future mega-stars Christine Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. It also featured future Aztecs drummer Gil "Rathead" Matthews!

Our own Young Talent Time in its 17 year run fostered the careers of Jamie Redfern, Dannii Minogue, Debra Byrne and Tina Arena who is currently based in Paris and enjoying European success.

And of course Neighbours gave us Kylie and Jason.

The twins were nine and Barry 12 when they began busking and appearing on television,they released their first single five years later before The Bee Gees journeyed to London and super stardom.

Tommy Emmanuel was a working professional musician at the age of nine, his father had so much faith in the talents of him and his brother Phil that he sold the family home and they lived out of their station wagon and worked all over Australia. Dad died in 1966 and Phil entered and won several talent quests while still a teenager before playing sessions and jingles and playing in various bands and becoming a much in demand solo guitarist.

Perhaps the most instant success came to Alannis Morrisette who, while still in high school,wrote and recorded her debut album which went platinum in Canada, and after finishing high school wrote and recorded Jagged Little Pill which is the best-selling international debut album by a female artist, with more than sixteen million copies sold in the U.S.,selling thirty-three million worldwide made it the third biggest-selling album by a female artist, and the biggest selling debut album of all time, even though it was her third album. But she still doesn't know the meaning of ironic!

Who else?

Posted
by Stephen WalkerDecember 8, 2009 2:03 PM

LATEST COMMENTS

Good choice -- I recently watched an old episode of Ozzie and Harriet, and Ricky was certainly a charmer. He was hooked up with some great musos, and had many great hits.
Tina Arena also stood out in YTT -- usually because she was a step behind everyone in her dancing. Debbie Byrne was another great product of YTT.
Stevie Winwood was a childhood prodigy, too.
Micky Dolenz was fun in Circus Boy, but his uniform looks a little like a nazi youth league number left over from The Sound of Music.

Posted by: Professor Rosseforp on December 9, 2009 6:15 AM

Forgot to mention that Circus Boy may have been responsible for my lifelong loathing of clowns

Posted by: Professor Rosseforp on December 9, 2009 6:25 AM

Nikki Webster

Captured the nation's hearts with a soul-stirring performance at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, then captured the nation's eyeballs with a crotch-stirring shoot in a lad's mag.

Posted by: Marty on December 9, 2009 6:48 AM

speaking of Mickey Dolenz, wasn't Davey Jones also a child actor?

Posted by: Igomi Watabi on December 9, 2009 10:31 AM

Michael Jackson + siblings.

Posted by: Professor Rosseforp on December 9, 2009 1:33 PM

Then there's second generation rock royalty - your Zac Starrs, Julian Lennons, & yer John Bonham sprogs.
They may (or may not) be talented, but are fawned upon, or at least given a fair hearing - unlike some of the child-stars mentioned who have had to overcome cringe-worthy early careers & fight to establish their own Identities.
Ricky Nelson famously had a reverse 'Newport' moment in 1971 where he was booed off stage at a 'rock revival' concert - for going acoustic (he performed The Stones' Country Honk) - This was the inspiration for his 1972 hit 'Garden Party' which contained the line... "If memories are all I sing / I'd rather drive a truck."